May 15, 2026
President Robert W. Iuliano
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Members of the Class of 2026, families, friends, faculty, and staff—it is my great honor to welcome you to our Baccalaureate ceremony.
Graduates, tomorrow we will gather in front of Pennsylvania Hall for your Commencement. There will be music and speeches, diplomas and Stoles of Gratitude, hugs and happy tears.
It will be a day filled with all the pomp and circumstance we can muster—and it will undoubtedly be a celebration that you and your loved ones will remember for the rest of your lives.
I encourage you to take it all in.
This event, our Baccalaureate service, is less a celebration than it is a moment to pause. To take a breath. To stop and reflect. To take in the fullness of these past four years and, more importantly, the countless ways you’ve changed into the person you are today.
Class of 2026, the last time we all gathered together in front of Pennsylvania Hall, with your class flag flying high atop the Cupola as it is once again, was your Opening Convocation back in August of 2022.
If you recall, this was the first day you stepped onto campus as Gettysburg College students. You had just moved into your first-year dorms. You waved bashfully, introducing yourself to new neighbors. And many of you prepared yourself to say goodbye to your families for the first time in your lives.
It was a day filled with emotion, to be sure.
At that opening ceremony, I offered you two predictions.
First, I told you that the people around you would become your lifelong friends.
At the time, that may have felt less like reassurance and more like Orange & Blue hype from some guy dressed in fancy regalia. I get that.
But look around you today. Those same strangers from across the country and around the world became your classmates and your lab partners, your roommates and your teammates, your fraternity brothers and your sorority sisters, your fellow Gettysburgians.
Even today, all I need to do is say their first names and I bet you will know the amazing people I’m talking about.
Just for fun, let’s give it a try: Ella and Riley. Alfredo and Dom. Stella and Sofia.
See what I’m mean? This community is special. You don’t find this at other colleges. Only here at Gettysburg.
Those strangers at Opening Convocation are now your lifelong friends. Members of the Gettysburg College Class of 2026—now and forever. That’s a beautiful thing.
The second prediction I made was this: Gettysburg would challenge you in ways you’d never been challenged before.
And there would be times when you’d wonder whether you made the right choice, whether you could press on, whether you could do the work.
And I told you then what I hope you know now: You can do the work. You belong here. And you’ll belong wherever you aspire to go next.
You have proven it time and again: in your First-Year Seminar and your Senior Capstone, on the Majestic stage and Clark Field, in your student organizations and the Fortune 500 companies for which you interned.
As you move forward in your life and career, I’d encourage you to remember this: to Do Great Work, first you must do.
You must take action.
Try. Stumble. Fail. Then get back up and try again.
That’s how we learn and grow. That’s how we achieve Great Work. And it’s precisely what you’ve done over these past four years.
We are so incredibly proud of you for it.
Before I conclude, I’d like to return to a fable I shared with you back in 2022.
At Convocation, I told the story of the tortoise and the hare. We all know the story. In my comments, I suggested that the hare’s great failing was not simply that he ran too fast or rested too long.
His big mistake was his certainty.
He was certain of what he knew. Certain about himself, about his competition, and about how the race would unfold. So certain, in fact, that he couldn’t imagine any other outcome than his surefire victory.
In the end, that certainty closed him off to possibilities he hadn’t considered. It closed him off to seeing the world with wonder—the same wonder that has led you to try new classes, join new clubs, declare new majors, and arrive here.
Now, as you prepare to graduate, I want to return to this idea and build upon this same sense of wonder that got you to this milestone.
At Gettysburg College, we promised you that you’d develop a breadth and depth of knowledge. We promised you that you’d deepen a set of truly enduring skills. And you’ve gained this in abundance.
But this isn’t meant to give you certainty.
Rather, the knowledge and skills you’ve acquired are meant to give you the tools to succeed in all that comes next.
The wonder to ask better questions.
The ability to listen before deciding.
The discipline to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
The discernment to evaluate two paths and choose the better one.
The character to hold fast to your values, while remaining open to new people and new perspectives.
A Gettysburg education is meant to give you wisdom.
To be clear, wisdom is not the same as having all the answers. In fact, wisdom begins with the humility to admit that we don’t know all the answers.
Wisdom is about embracing life’s complexity and nuance.
It’s about pursuing truth in a world where falsehoods can be all too prevalent.
It’s about the courage to do what’s right, especially when it’s hard.
Class of 2026, that’s what your Gettysburg education has prepared you to do.
As you cross the stage tomorrow and step out into the world, may your eyes be open to wonder. May your heart be filled with friendship. And may your compass always be pointed toward wisdom.
We believe in you, and we cannot wait to see the truly great work you will do in the years ahead.
Congratulations!